Sports Shorts

Sports Shorts

Synopsis

Having played football, cricket, tennis, basketball and volleyball in his youth, Neil wanted to convey the energy, excitement and spectacular feats of sport through dance. He was always fascinated with the planned and unplanned patterns which happen in sport, for example, the pathway taken by a basketballer to lay-up the ball, the formation of a pack to contest the mark in football, the formation of scums in rugby as well as the constant interaction between opponents.

To create the dance, Neil selected actions from different sports. He chose specific actions which would contrast with one another. He began with the essence of the sporting actions and developed dance sequences by abstracting these movements. By increasing the range of the movements, or changing their rhythm or speed, Neil was able to transform them into dance movements. These sequences were then arranged into a dance using interesting floor patterns, different groupings and repetition.

Whenever Sports Shorts was performed in schools, five Grade 5 children were selected and were rehearsed and integrated to perform in the work with the members of Tasdance.